The Brief

It’s been two months since a group of California State University administrators issued a report describing how the massive public university system is falling short in educating its Black students.

“While there is a greater awareness and sensitivity to the reality of Black life in America, this acute attention has also shone a spotlight on the gap between our aspirational and actual selves in the CSU,” the report’s authors said in the document’s conclusion.

They suggested the report should be a guide for change, not another data point:

The report was produced to inform new CSU Chancellor Mildred García on a top issue as she takes over in October, but the report’s co-author says there’s an important step the 23 campuses can take before then.

“Campuses will have to do an audit,” Thomas Parham, co-chair of the Black Student Success Workgroup, told LAist in an interview.

“They’ll look at the 13 recommendations and figure out which of these things we already do,” and which they don’t, he said. Parham is also president of California State University, Dominguez Hills.

That audit, he said, should ask a lot of questions, including whether a campus can do more to get more applications from Black high school and transfer students, start and fund Black student resource centers on campuses, and hire more Black faculty.

Parham’s comments come as the system welcomes back hundreds of thousands of students for the fall semester. According to data for Fall 2022, the Black student population was 18,308 systemwide out of a total of 457,992 students. That’s 4%. California’s Black population is about 6.5%, according to Census estimates.

How well is CSU educating Black students?

Educators often use the word “pipeline” to describe the process that guides students from youth to college and a degree. However, the width of most pipes doesn’t change through the length of the pipe.

CSU data for Black students makes the process look more like a funnel, an opening that becomes narrower, through which fewer and fewer Black students pass.

In 2017:

• There were 23,191 Black graduates from California high schools, of which ...
• only 9,174 graduated with the classes universities require for admission ...
• CSU campuses enrolled 2,681 Black freshmen in Fall 2017 but ...
• nearly 1 out of 4 of them did not come back for their sophomore year, and ...
• out of that Black freshman class, only 1,074 had earned a degree five years later.

CSU is working to improve Black student graduation rates.

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Matt Brown/Courtesy California State University

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Parham says the goal is to have more Black students enroll and reach graduation day.

“It's definitely a challenge,” said Yesenia Fernandez, a professor and interim director of the office of first- and second-year experiences at CSU Dominguez Hills.

“We don't necessarily have all the resources that we need to truly make that happen and I think this report is the beginning of really examining what those resources are,” Fernandez said.

For instance, she said, high cost of living is leading some students to set aside their studies so the university should step in to help.

Black students don’t feel campuses are safe

Fernandez, and the report, identify something less tangible than finances but also harmful to Black students’ chances to staying enrolled and earning a CSU degree: explicit and implicit anti-Blackness by people on campus that makes Black students feel like they are not wanted and don’t belong at the university.

“Any sort of microaggression or difficulty in navigating the policies and procedures that are part of academia can kind of reinforce that for you and push you out of higher education,” she said.

Black students have talked about how their campus’ Black student center is the only safe space on campus, a place where they can be their authentic selves.

The report says “microaggressions, microassaults, microinvalidations and systemic and individual racism” against Black students are alive and well at CSU campuses.

“What does it look like?” Parham said. “It looks like a staff person who might have been less than courteous. It looks like a faculty member who was perceived to create a toxic environment in their classroom so that Black students either a) didn't feel included b) felt… discriminated against."

Parham says all campus employees need to be on board.

“Black student success should be included in presidential performance reviews and could result in increases in university funding allocations when they achieve each of the recommendations,” according to the report.

“I made sure that was in there … so that the performance of people like me as a president will now be judged on how much success you've had in this endeavor,” he said.

The details of how that accountability will look like are yet to be determined but Parham said holding campus presidents accountable will mean those presidents will expect lower-level administrators — as well as faculty and staff — to do what they can to improve things, like low Black student enrollment, underfunded or non-existent Black student spaces and few mental health services to that population.

What's happened this summer?

LAist reached out to the CSU campuses in Northridge, Long Beach, Los Angeles and Fullerton to find out their progress.

“We have indeed begun a review of Black student success at CSUN,” said spokeswoman Carmen Chandler via email.

She added the university is creating a website to keep students and employees up to date on progress.

“By the start of the fall term, university officials will announce to the campus how they intend to proceed with a study of CSUN Black student success, including recommendations for how to improve outcomes and experiences,” she said.

CSU Long Beach said it’s in the planning stages, which will include an audit. CSU Los Angeles said via email that this fall, “the University will use the report’s success markers to assess campus progress and develop a plan of action."

A Cal State Fullerton spokeswoman received the request but did not reply with details.

Graduates from CSU Humboldt.

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Courtesy CSU

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Next steps

Parham said he expects the new CSU chancellor to create an “implementation committee” made up of himself and others who worked on the report as well as representatives from all CSU campuses.

The report recommends the immediate implementation of a professional development session for all CSU employees to identify anti-Blackness.

“What's at stake is the future of California,” said Sikivu Hutchinson, founder of The Women’s Leadership Project. She’s mentored Black youth in her organization who’ve gone on to enroll in and graduate from CSU campuses and read the report.

“African American youth are disproportionately saddled with debt, are disproportionately being pipelined into prisons, into mass incarceration, into sex trafficking, into underemployment and unemployment, and that our generational wealth is essentially going down the drain,” so yes, she said, increasing Black college graduation rates is good for the state and good for the student.

As Los Angeles homeowners grapple with the expense of rebuilding after last year’s devastating fires, an L.A. City Councilmember is putting forward an idea that could lower some costs.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, has introduced a motion to explore waiving part of the city’s portion of the local sales tax for fire victims who purchase rebuilding materials in the city.

The 1% of the local 9.75% sales tax that goes into the city’s general fund would be given back to consumers under the proposal. The waiver could apply to lumber, appliances and other rebuilding goods purchased within the city.

The motion, introduced Friday by Park and seconded by Councilmember John Lee, says: “The City should do everything within its power to alleviate the financial burden for these residents and businesses in order to facilitate their return and stabilize the Pacific Palisades community.”

Would it make much of a difference? 

Economists told LAist the proposal could help many homeowners mitigate the high cost of rebuilding, but likely wouldn’t tip the scales for under-insured, under-resourced property owners.

“It wouldn't hurt if it's very well designed and easy to use,” said Alexander Meeks, a director at the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. “But I'm not sure if it's really going to tackle the scale of the financial challenge that survivors are facing.”

Meeks noted that the tax waiver wouldn’t lower up-front costs such as environmental testing, architectural design and permitting. And it may not help homeowners sourcing raw materials from outside the city.

Zhiyun Li, a UCLA Anderson School of Management economist, said the waiver could help some homeowners justify the additional cost of rebuilding more fire-safe structures.

“Homeowners must typically pay out of pocket to upgrade to IBHS+ standards, which are more stringent,” Li said. “The tax waiver could encourage upgrading to IBHS+ standards or investing more in mitigation, thereby reducing future risk and improving the likelihood of maintaining insurance coverage.”

What’s next for the proposal? 

The proposed tax relief would not be available to properties that have been sold since the fires started in January 2025.

The motion has been sent to the City Council’s budget and fire recovery committees. If approved by the full council, it would require the city administrative officer, the Office of Finance and the city attorney to report back to the council within 60 days on options for crafting a tax relief plan.

The motion calls for the report to consider factors such as how to minimize the burden of administering the tax relief, what documentation homeowners would have to submit and what it would cost the city to oversee the program.

Senate and House Republican leadership have resurrected a stalled plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security after a record 47-day funding lapse.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the House will take up a measure passed by the Senate last week to fund most of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of September.

Republicans would then attempt to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years using a party-line budget reconciliation bill that would not require support from Democrats.

"In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited," Thune and Johnson wrote.

The agreement comes nearly a week after House Republicans dismissed an identical plan, refusing to take up the Senate-passed measure and instead passing a 60-day short term funding bill for all of DHS that had little chance of overcoming Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Johnson called the agreement a "joke" and President Donald Trump declined to publicly endorse the deal. Trump had previously resisted any package that did not include his push to overhaul federal elections known as the Save America Act.

"I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it," Trump told reporters last week.

Democrats welcomed the agreement as in line with their pledge not to give ICE any more money without reforms after immigration enforcement agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. But the deal does not include any of the policy demands Democrats are pressing for, such as a ban on masks for immigration enforcement officers and requiring warrants issued by a judge, not just the agency, to enter homes.

"For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement Wednesday. "Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered."

Trump seemed to bless the revived plan earlier Wednesday, writing on social media that he wants a party-line bill to fund immigration enforcement on his desk by June 1.

"We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote.

Despite the shutdown, ICE has been minimally impacted because Republican lawmakers approved $75 billion for ICE through another party-line budget reconciliation bill last year.

Congress is on a two-week recess, but the Senate and House could move to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP as early as Thursday using a procedure known as unanimous consent that allows the chambers to circumvent formal voting as long as no member objects.

Even during a recess when most members are not in Washington, this could be unpredictable, especially in the House, where many hard-line conservatives oppose a deal that does not fully fund DHS.

"Let's make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again," Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X. "If that's the vote, I'm a NO."

If a member does object, that could require waiting for another vote when all members are back from recess.

Claudia Grisales contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season.

It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.

Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.

But experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains.

On Wednesday, state engineers conducting the symbolic April 1 snowpack measurement at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe found no measurable snow in patches of white dotting the grassy field.

“I want to welcome you call to probably one of the quickest snow surveys we’ve had — maybe one where people could actually use an umbrella,” joked Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “We’re getting a lot of questions about are we heading into a hydrologic drought? The answer is, I don’t know.”

State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs.

Only the extreme drought year of 2015 beat this year’s snowpack for the worst on record, measuring in at just 5% of average on April 1st, when the snow historically is at its deepest.

“I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.

“Without a snowpack, and with an early spring, it just means that there’s much more time for something like that to happen.”

‘It’s pretty bizarre up here’ 

In the city of South Lake Tahoe, which survived the massive Caldor Fire in the fall of 2021 without losing any structures, fire chief Jim Drennan said his department is already ramping up prevention efforts.

“It's pretty bizarre up here right now. It really seems like June conditions more than March,” Drennan said. “People are already turning the sprinklers on for their lawns.”

Without more precipitation, an early spring may complicate prescribed burning efforts. But Drennan said fire agencies in the Tahoe basin can start mechanically clearing fuels from forest areas earlier than usual.

“That means we can get more work done,” he said.

It also means homeowners need to start hardening their homes now, said Martin Goldberg, battalion chief and fuels management officer for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which protects unincorporated communities in the Lake Tahoe Basin’s south shore.

Goldberg urges residents to scour their yards for burnable materials, create defensible space and reach out to local fire departments with questions. The risks are widespread — from firewood, wooden fences, gas cans, plants, pine needles — even lawn furniture stacked against a house.

“In years past, I wouldn't even think of raking and clearing until May,” Goldberg said. “But my yard's completely cleared of snowpack, and it has been for a couple weeks now.”

‘A haystack fire’

Battalion chief David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said fire season is shaped by more than just one year’s snowpack.

Climate change has been remaking California’s fire seasons into fire years. And California’s recent average to abundant water years have fueled what Acuña called “bumper crops of vegetation and brush.”

“Most of California is like a haystack. And if you’ve ever seen a haystack fire, they burn very intensely because there's layers of fuel,” Acuña said.

Like Quinn-Davidson, Acuña wasn’t ready to make specific predictions about fires to come.

But John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced, said the temperatures and snowpack conditions this year offer a glimpse of California in the latter decades of this century, as fossil fuel use continues to drive global temperatures higher.

How this year’s fires will play out will depend on when, where and how wind, heat, fuel and ignitions combine. But it foreshadows the consequences of a warmer California for water and fire under climate change.

“This,” Abatzoglou said, “is yet another stress test for the future in the state.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.